


Buffalo Buffalo

by entallat



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-11
Updated: 2011-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 14:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entallat/pseuds/entallat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! Or a moment in the life of a frustrated linguist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buffalo Buffalo

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a drabble, inspired by a wikipedia page about a bizarre grammatical construct. When I read it, I figured stuff like this had to give Hoshi a headache from time to time.
> 
> There's just a hint of TnT at the end, otherwise this is pretty much a general story.

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo!"  
  
Malcolm paused, mug of tea halfway to his lips. Travis stopped mid-chew on his third bite of an enormous roast beef sandwich. Trip squinted, fork suspended above his plate. "Uh ... you okay, Ensign?" he asked.  
  
Hoshi made a frustrated sound and dropped her PADD onto the table, ignoring the salad in front of her. "No, Commander, I'm not. Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo!" She waved a hand at the PADD, "That's what this is!" She pinched the bridge of her nose.  
  
All three men exchanged a puzzled look. Malcolm looked as if he was searching for the proper thing to say.  Travis shrugged in a "when in Rome" sort of way and began slowly chewing again, eyes on Hoshi. Trip just set his fork down. "What is ... what??"  
  
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo," the discouraged linguist repeated slowly. "It's a grammatically valid sentence in the English language."  
  
Malcolm blinked. Travis stopped chewing again. Trip frowned. "Sure doesn't sound like it to me."  
  
Hoshi sighed. "One word is a noun, one is a verb and the other is a noun adjunct. A noun acting as an adjective," she clarified. "It means, essentially, that bison who are bullied by other bison are themselves intimidating to bison."  
  
"Naturally," murmured Malcolm, sipping his tea again. Travis choked back a snicker.  Trip hid a smile behind a mug of coffee.  
  
Hoshi leaned back in her chair, looking defeated. "The Arkelian language is full of this kind of thing. ‘Rose rose to put rose roes on her rows of roses.’ ‘If it is it, it is it, if it is, it is it, it is!’ ‘If the police police police police, who polices the police police? Police police police police police police!’” Hoshi rubbed her forehead. “I have to decipher what type of grammatical construct each word is acting as before I can decode a single sentence. It should follow first order logic, but there's something I'm missing." She pushed the PADD into the center of the table.  
  
All three men slowly leaned in to crowd around the tiny screen filled with symbols and equations.  
  
"Given the domain, the set of all buffalo (animal)” Hoshi explained, “and FB(x) equals 'x is from Buffalo (place)’ and B(x, y) equals 'x buffalos (verb) y'… it’s _simple_!" Hoshi waved a hand at the screen. "But I must be missing a buffalo because that's not working for the UT's translation matrix in this case.”  
  
All three men slowly looked up at Hoshi, from where they were still leaning over the PADD, eyes wide. Finally Trip ventured, with a slight tilt of his head at the roast beef sandwich, "Maybe Travis here ate him?"  
  
Hoshi giggled. Malcolm snorted and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. Travis hurriedly swallowed and cleared his throat, "Sorry, Hoshi," the helmsman grinned brightly.  
  
Just then the doors to the mess hall opened and T’Pol walked through the room towards the galley.  
  
“I think I’ll have a talk with Commander T’Pol about these equations.” Hoshi smiled as she quickly stood up and gathered her PADD. "Thanks guys. I needed that," she added softly.  
  
"Of course,” Malcolm smiled, "anytime."  
  
"Ever notice how the women on this ship are scary smart?" Travis mused, tone deliberately teasing as Hoshi remained standing by the table.  
  
Trip glanced briefly over his shoulder and caught T'Pol's eyes before she disappeared into Chef’s galley, and then shoved his fork into the pasta on his plate. "Oh, I've noticed," he murmured.  
  
Hoshi punched Travis in the shoulder with a grin, turned towards the door, then paused to briefly whisper to Commander Tucker, " _Mamihlapinatapei._ "  
  
Trip looked up, startled. "What?"  
  
Hoshi nodded towards the door where the Vulcan first officer had disappeared. "It's Yagan, Commander. Look it up." Then she grinned and left the mess hall.

\----

 _Mamihlapinatapei_ : ( _Yagan, an indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego_ ) " _The wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to start." From "The Top 10 Relationship Words That Aren't Translatable Into English"._

 

 


End file.
